Jack Cashill
WorldNetDaily writer, and author of the new book Deconstructing Obama, has taken the time to “answer questions” about Barack Obama’s social-security number. Here I deconstruct Dr. Cashill’s article by looking at it in terms of rhetorical fallacies.
Evidence
The first order of business is to extract the evidentiary content of the article, some “old news.” It is publicly known that President Obama registered with the Selective Service in 1980 using social-security number 042-68-4425 and that he has used that number in transactions since, transactions that appear in databases. It is further known that the “042” number series is usually issued to residents of Connecticut and that Obama’s number was probably issued around 1977.
Susan Daniels – appeal to false authority
“All I can say,” says Daniels of 042-68-4425, “is that it’s phony and [Obama] has been using it, with it first appearing on his selective service document in 1980.”
Cashill then uses a couple of rhetorical devices to amplify that statement. The first is to get the reader to like Daniels through an appeal to sympathy: “Widowed at 30 with seven children, Daniels went back to school and eventually emerged as a certified paralegal.” Then Cashill tries to make Daniels into an expert on the topic at hand by saying: “By her own admission, Daniels is ‘good with public records.’ She knows her way around databases and has access to many that the public does not.”
Whether we like Daniels or not has nothing to do with her qualifications to say that “it’s phony.” Further, without some explanation of why she claims the SSN is phony, we really cannot accept a claim to expertise. We do see later in the article some information Daniels obtained from public records pinning down the date of SSN issue to around 1977 (about the time Obama got his first real job). As a private investigator, she may be have access to databases not generally available to the public, but she never provides any information from those databases to support her claim — therefore that access is irrelevant.
It’s important to keep in mind that while Obama’s SSN “first appeared” in 1980, that only means that Daniels did not find its use before then. Daniels only has access to records like real estate transactions, in which we would not expect to see Barack Obama before age 19. Any uses of that SSN for employment purposes would not appear in any database Daniels had access to, for example when Obama worked for Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu as a teenager.
Daniels admits that the reason she started investigating Obama was because she “didn’t like the way things were going” which I presume means a political reason. I can’t read this any other way but “I didn’t like what Obama was doing, so I started looking for some dirt to discredit him.”
Unsupported claim
The article is peppered with these, but I wanted single out one:
What she and fellow investigator Neil Sankey unearthed was a nugget that could have ended the career of a George Bush or a Sarah Plain [sic]: Barack Obama had been using a social security number issued in Connecticut between 1977 and 1979, a state in which he never lived or even visited at that time in his life.
The assumption is false. The number was not issued “in Connecticut” since all number were assigned centrally in 1961 and not by state offices. It was a number usually issued to persons with Connecticut return addresses. This appeal asserts favoritism being shown Obama, but no argument is made to support the idea that the SSN question would have made a difference to George Bush or Sarah Palin. <joke>A Connecticut social-security number for George W. Bush certainly wouldn’t be an issue because Bush was born in Connecticut!</joke> It’s also an ad hominem argument in that it invites the reader to be ill-disposed towards Barack Obama because he is shown favoritism — the inverse of the sympathy the reader is supposed to show investigator Daniels.
Les Kinsolving – False analogy
Cashill recounts Lester Kinsolving (the WorldNetDaily White House correspondent) asking White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the SSN, and Gibbs turning it into a joke. Then Cashill commits the fallacy of a false analogy citing an incident from years back where Kinsolving asked a serious question about AIDS that was also turned into a joke. I guess the argument is, since Kinsolving once asked an important question turned into a joke, all of his questions turned into jokes are about important real issues. Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDe91Un4A-0
Robert Gibbs is obviously not prepared for the question.
Straw men
Cashill discusses two possible explanations for Obama having a Connecticut series SSN. Usually a straw man argument means citing an objection that no one is making, and then refuting it. In this case the “possible explanations” are actually ones that have been made, but not the best ones. The best argument is ignored.
The two explanations are that Obama got his social-security number by mail from Indonesia, and Obama got his SSN through his father when he was at Harvard. Cashill doesn’t actually provide an argument against these except to apply ridicule by saying “Last time I checked, Harvard was in Massachusetts.” The fallacy against the first explanation is an “argument by dismissal” — dismissing a claim but not saying why.
He could have made a much better refutation of the by pointing out that Obama returned from Indonesia long before 1977 and that his father was in Cambridge in 1965. These scenarios do not support a 1977 SSN.
The better explanation for the Obama SSN from Connecticut is a clerical error at the Social Security processing center. If the first digit of the Zip Code on the return address (“9” in Hawaii) is read as a zero, it becomes a Connecticut Zip Code. Confusing “6”, “9” and “0” are common visual errors. “0” and “9” are also adjacent on the keyboard. The IRS made this error processing my Income Tax return one year.
Guilt by association
The article then presents some information about radicals using fake identity documents, quoting Bill Ayers, someone whose name is often attached to Barack Obama. However, Ayers remarks are irrelevant since Obama didn’t know Ayers in 1977 (or 1980).
Ad hominem
Examples of this include:
- Describing what a Huffington Post writer said as “crowed.”
- Characterizing the media as “left leaning”
- Describing another comment as said “with a straight face.”
Appeal to anonymous authority
Some have credibly argued that the Selective Service information was forged and backdated once Obama became a presidential candidate.
Omitting relevant information
One rather important fact that the article fails to mention is that Barack Obama was employed at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store in his teens, exactly when the social-security number was issued. It makes a whole lot more sense that Obama got his SSN when he got a job (just like most folks of his time), that he used that same number when he registered for the draft, and that he used the same number when he bought a house.
Unsupported conclusion
The article concludes:
From Daniels’ perspective, one felonious use of a fraudulent number is enough. She believes this to be a more tangible scandal than the birth certificate and wonders when someone beyond WND will start paying attention.
The point is that nothing in this article documents is “one felonious use of a fraudulent number.” If she ever find one, then people beyond WND will start paying attention. Until then, her conclusion is unsupported by the argument.
There’s not a single thing in all of these databases that shows Barack Obama either had or used any other number. It seems to me that a clerical error is a far more likely explanation for the number being from the wrong series than any conspiracy theory about fake identities that somehow have persisted for 34 years without official notice, and why in the world would Barack Obama want a fraudulent social-security number in the first place?
Obama Baskin-Robbins video:
For me, the whole SSN issue begins and ends with this caveat from the Social Security Administration:
Obama has an SSN that starts like those given in Connecticut? That proves that he has a social security number. That’s it. With this caveat from the SSA, the SSN has no probative value at all with respect to geography.
Has Mr Cashill or Ms Daniels reported this to the Social Security Administration? They have toll free hotlines and websites where you can report suspected fraud and they wiill investigate.
You have to love what passes for an appeal to authority in bifistan….wow!! Another paralegal! That’s impressive. And I don’t care how good she is with databases or public records….a social security number is neither.
Obama files his taxes using this SSN. This is indisputable, since his house was bought under this SSN and he claims deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, which would be disallowed if the number on the 1098 from the mortgage lender didn’t match the number on the return. If you fiie under an SSN that doesn’t match the name of the filer, it gets kicked out and you get a nasty letter from the IRS. Here is his 2009 return http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/president-obama-2010-complete-return.pdf, in case anyone wants to look at it.
Thus, there is absolutely no doubt that this SSN is legitimately Obama’s.
And n.b. this ‘graf: “Daniels and Sankey have tracked Obama’s many uses of the “042” number in Chicago, in Massachusetts and in Washington. Others numbers appear with the “Obama” name, but Daniels cautions against attributing these numbers – with the exception of those from Obama’s college days at Occidental – to the president.”
“Other numbers”? What other numbers? “Appear”? Appear where? What does that mean? And why discount the other numbers but not the “Occidental numbers”?
Innuendo, innuendo, innuendo … and no supporting evidence.
By the time Obama was a gawky teenager applying at Baskin-Robins, the world-wide conspiracy to place him in the White House was entering its 16th year.
So of course it needed a fake SS number, to match the index number on his fake COLB. Next step- his fake selective service registration.
Birthers are idiots.
Shoulda/woulda/coulda byline of birthers and World Nut Daily since the beginning of time
Good point. Be a good American and put your money where your mouth is.
What’s being glossed over is the IRS is the one who issued these numbers. They have records of numbers of people who have died.
Susan Daniels may say it’s a fake, but the IRS doesn’t seem to think so.
In any other situation, I would say the fake social security arugment has to be the dumbest thing you could come up with, but birther have shown that there is no limit to the stupid things they can think up.
Let think this through. A teenage Obama, decides he needs a social secuirty number. Now rather than just applying for one (after all, according to them granny already lied to get him a Hawaiian B.C., so getting a real one wouldn’t be a problem). So Granny, proving herself to be so good at fraud the first time, decides to get him the social security number of some dude from Connecticut born in 1890. The SSA doesn’t notice that two people are paying taxes under the same SSN. Neither does the IRS. Obviously this 1890 dude dies at some point, but for reasons unknown to anyone, the SSA probably pays out some survivor benefits under this number, but doesn’t bother putting the number on the death index. And still neither the IRS nor the SSA notice this Hawaiian kid is paying taxes and SS under a now dead Connecticut guy’s number. Next little Obama files for selective service…again using a false number….no one notices. Then little Obama applies for college using a false number….no one notices. I’m guessing he probably applied from some grants, scholarships, and student loans…all using the number of the now dead guy from Connecticut. Still no one notices. He then applies to transfer to another school…more student loans….still no one notices. He than applies for law school. Even more student loans….no one notices. He goes to work at a big law firm. They send his paper work to confirm he is legal to work. Still no one notices. He pays taxes and SS while at this firm. Still no one notices. He buys a house, which involves a credit check. Somehow the bank misses the fact that his credit rating seems a little messed up because it actually belongs to two people. He runs for state office, gets elected, pays more taxes. Still not a nibble. Runs for senate. Still not a nibble. Finally runs for president, and now some crackpot mail order attorney is the one who figures out he has gone over 30 years with someone else’s social security number. Mind you, the vast majority of that time, or you Mr. Obama is no one of consequence, so there would be no one to protect him once use of a false number is discovered.
Oh yeah…that and as I said before, he already had a birth certificate that granny supposed managed to get by fraud, so why not just use that to get a real SSn?
Another rhetorical failure: Cahill says various people have credibly argued that Obama forged his selective service form.
This is not only an appeal to authority, but an appeal to unnamed authority. How does the reader know if their arguments are credible if the reader not only doesn’t know their arguments, but also doesn’t know who is making the arguments?
A fair analysis of rhetoric , dr c. I,d point out that the Obama ayers relationship goes a little deeper to bill ayers parents thom and …… . One narrative has Obama dropping by Chicago to thank them for their support of his education in 1983 ( and bill living in new York city just to the east of Columbia through the early 80,s). Although I still agree with the guilt by association. It still let’s Obama establish a Ssn by 1986 and then fake a selective service registration. Has anyone made a claim about the number used for the baskin Robbins job? Sorry for the mid day quick typing.
http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.com/2010/06/14/obama-knew-bill-ayers-parents-up-close-and-personal/
You seem to be confusing the IRS with SSA.
Over at Apuzzo’s blog, in a related context Kerchner explains that Obama legally changed his name to Soetoro, but never changed it back.
SSA issues the number, but the IRS matches the number with the name on tax returns, 1099s, etc.
Yes, I am quite aware of that.
Ms Daniels attached a page to her affidavit titled “SSN Verifier” that identifies Obama’s SSN as having been issued 1997-1979. Her affidavit appears at the beginning of Orly’s Exhibit 1 in the FOIA case.
Ms Daniels knows the number is a real SSN because she and Orly now have the SS -5 and accompanying data for the number immediately preceding Obama’s which shows that number was issued in mid-April 1977, just about the right time for a 15 year old high school sophomore, like Obama was in April 1977, to be looking for his first summer job.
I’ve been looking at the numbers around Thomas Wood with a goal of searching +/- 1000 from his number in the SS Death Index. Not making much progress, but thus far, very few of these numbers return with a hit, that is, the owner of the number is not dead or his death has not been reported to the SSA. I think that’s because this group of numbers was issued in 1977 mostly to people born late 50s to mid 60s, like Woods and Obama, getting their first jobs and passports. They don’t appear in the SS Death Index yet because most of them are too young to be dead yet. Poor Mr Wood died in 1981 at aged 19.
How did a kid with a Hawaii mailing address get a CT SSN? Epectitus just posted over at fogbow a link to a report on typographical numerical errors that found 49% of typos were the result of single digit replacement and the largest cause of single digit replacement was adjacent position of number keys.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419425/
The zip code for Obama’s grandparents in Honolulu in 1976 was 96814.
http://www.thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=5146&start=25#p195743
Replace the 9 with a 0 and you have zip code 06814, a zip code for Danbury, CT.
A data entry error that replaced a 9 with a 0 is an explanation for the CT SSN that can be easily understood by anyone who has ever seen a keyboard. It does not matter that Obama has an SSN that was meant to be issued to someone with a mailing address in CT. Obama has paid SSI, received W2’s, submitted tax returns, applied for loans and mortgages using this number for more than 30 years. If there was a problem with him having a CT number, it would have been flagged and corrected long ago.
Thanks, Bob. I added this to my article.
Re Susan Daniels:
“I didn’t like what Obama was doing, so I’ll start looking for some dirt to discredit him.”
NO, she doesn’t like Obama. She is also a nasty piece of work. We had an email exchange after her work with Orly.
“You are obviously a liberal Democrat who has no clue what she is talking about. BHO is a piece of crap and, I suspect, so are you.”
That was the first reply and it just got nastier, including sending disgusting pictures of President and First Lady Obama and lies about homosexuality, murder, you know the crap. She HATES the Obamas.
My favorite proof that the SSA does screw up:
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/06/26/two-women-share-birth-date-and-social-security-number/
One or both of those women have to have been issued a SSN from a series not assigned to their state.
The SSDI allows the entry of wild cards, for instance, you can enter 042-25-6??? and it will return all that match.
I didn’t realize that, and that will make it much simpler. Thanks Sef.
She went to the Ann Coulter School of Public Speaking, closely associated with the Spiro Agnew School of Public Administration.
Ann Coulter to Bill O’Reilly: Radiation Is Actually Good for You’
http://tv.gawker.com/#!5783191/ann-coulter-to-bill-oreilly-radiation-is-actually-good-for-you
Are there any sane conservatives?
There’s radiation and then there’s radiation.
The IRS database is linked Social Security numidents. Moreover, the Social Security Administration maintains a database of earnings tracked through the information returns that employers file with bother the IRS and the SSA. In keeping track of work credits toward retirement, the SSA matches the income reported by the employer to the employee to be credited by way of the SSN. As an income tax return filer and an employee, Barack Obama could not have fraudulently used another person’s SSN for more than 30 years without either of these agencies somehow catching on to him.
Don’t you see how the conspiracy goes so far back?! I see they got to you, too. Obama and Ayers are clever, I tells ya.
Typical Obot disinformation! Actually, the Social Security Administration issues social security numbers. Why won’t you Obots acknowledge easily-documented facts?
No, those numbers are issued by the International Jewish Conspiracy™. Just ask Axelrod and Emmanuel. An Israeli is now Chicago mayor. Ha, ha.
3 years ago I had my tax return refused and returned, turns out the accountant accidently swicthed my wife and my SSN nos, her num was under my name, my num was under her name, so it didn’t jive with the record.7. So to believe Obama had 30 years of IRS refusals is a bit hard to swallow.
L Ron Hubbard used to say that radiation would dissolve in saltwater, smoking would help chase it out and other such silliness.
I think this is more likely a lapse in thought. Everybody knows that the Social Security Administration issues Social Security numbers; it would be silly to intentionally say otherwise. In fact it is silly to suggest that this is intentional disinformation.
Susan Daniels seems concerned only that Obama appears to have multiple SSNs associated with his name in commercial info aggregator databases, but she did not find it all that unusual BEFORE Obama was elected. In 2008 a blog, The Confidential Resource: Sources & Methods for the Investigator, cited Ms. Daniels:
“According to Susan Daniels, of Daniels and Associates Investigations, Inc. in Chardon Ohio, when searching through database aggregators such as IRB, it is common to find a subject referenced with two or three Social Security Numbers (SSN). Here are some of the reasons a person may show-up with multiple SSN’s:
* a wife’s or child’s SSN could end up with father’s name
* a parent’s SSN could show up with a child
* the subject bought something with someone else and the SSNs could end up with each other’s name
* the database producer is relating several SSN’s to one address
* an error by whoever entered the data
Susan Daniels of Daniels and Associates Investigations, Inc. (9754 Thwing Road Chardon, OH 44024, Tel.:440.286.4072) has been a Private Investigator for 15 years.”
http://www.confidentialresource.com/2008/07/09/subjects-with-multiple-ssns/
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. i wonder what happened between July 2008 and the date of Ms. Daniels’ affidavit for Orly’s failed lawsuit in California? Let me think ……. still thinking…………..pondering the question……… Why yes! A black man was elected to office!
Not that she will ever make it to the witness stand — after all, Orly cannot even get a complaint served correctly under Rule 4 — but assuming Ms. Daniels were somehow sitting in the witness chair, opposing counsel would have a rich source of impeachment material from Ms. Daniels’ prior statements, her personal political bias and her research methods. Would I love to be that cross examiner!
When Meg Whitman ran for governor of California last year, it came out that her housekeeper was in this country illegally. Ms. Whitman and her husband were informed of this by the SSA, which notified them that the housekeeper’s name and SS number didn’t match.
To think that Barack Obama could get away with using his own name and someone else’s SS number for 30 years defies all belief for any rational person. I guess that’s why birthers believe it.
Would I love to cross examine the Georgetown team.
They ruined my bracket!
(Well not all by themselves, but they are the only Sweet-16 team that I lost)
Oops. I had St. John’s in the Sweet 16 too. So that is two I lost. Hoya’s don’t have total blame.
WND Writer: Obama Didn’t Pick Clinton As VP Because She Might Have Killed Him
March 19, 2011 2:05 pm ET by Ben Dimiero
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if birther central WorldNetDaily is joking, or if the writers there are truly as untethered from reality as they appear to be.
WND has been one of the driving forces of the “birther” nonsense over the past couple years, with its writers trotting out a series of often-hilarious conspiracy theories about the president (my favorite perhaps being Jerome Corsi claiming Obama stole someone else’s Social Security number).
Today, WND published an op-ed by Larry Klayman explaining how “evil Hillary” Clinton will seek to “finally obtain proof positive that President Obama was born in Kenya.” According to Klayman, this would save her the inconvenience of having to kill him. No, really.
Earlier in the column, Klayman forwards the absurd suggestion that the Clintons killed their friend Vince Foster during the 90s [emphasis added]:
But there is one statement I will always remember: “Hillary rules the school,” testified to by Linda Tripp, the former assistant to mysteriously deceased Hillary law-firm partner and Clinton Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster – giving a new meaning to the French expression “femme fatale.” As also suggested during the testimony, Vince was the “love slave” who “watered Hillary’s office plants” and may have died for being honest and not wanting to go along any longer in helping her execute evil deeds. Over 80 material witnesses and others “died” during the Clinton years, and poor Vince was only one of them.
According to Klayman, it may be “passé” for “femme fatale” Hillary to “get rid of people by having them disappear,” hence why she will pursue the birther conspiracy:
In 2011, it may be passé for Hillary to get rid of people by having them disappear. But with Obama there is an easier way that I suspect may, in this age of “civility,” be the femme fatale’s new modus operandi. I have come to conclude, through sources close to Hillary, that she herself may again be working on the so-called “birther” issue, which she first raised during her 2008 presidential campaign. For if Hillary can finally obtain proof positive that President Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as he claims, then she will not have to send him on a day trip to Fort Marcy Park to retire him as president. What could be cleaner?
In fact, according to Klayman, the only reason “mullah in chief” Obama didn’t pick Clinton as VP was because he “obviously did not want to encourage his own ‘unfortunate accident.'”
BL, is WND a project of the Onion?
I always took it as gospel that G. Bush the elder picked Dan Quayle to ensure that no one would kill him.
Equally, G.Bush the shrub picked Dick Cheney to ensure that Cheney wouldn’t kill him.
“When John Ehrlichman, the President’s counsel and assistant, asked Nixon why he kept Agnew on the ticket in the 1972 election, Nixon replied that “No assassin in his right mind would kill me” because they would get Agnew.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew
Media Matters for America reports:
Brian Kilmeade gave more than 16 minutes of airtime on his Fox News Radio show to birther Jack Cashill to push conspiracy theories about Barack Obama and his upbringing.
Sef, sometimes one thinks so….I mean who in their right mind would actually believe anything WND writes?
A taste of ’12. I’m waiting for Mitt to get in with his 2.
Oh yeah… forgot about that one!
Quite true. I actually had this problem, in that one company I worked for while going to school in my late teens/early twenties made my Social Security withholdings using the wrong SSN. I received letters from both the IRS and SS admin for several years afterwards, advising me of the error and recommending I file a form correcting the error so I could claim the work history credit. Since it was just a part-time job for only about a year, I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble. But believe you me, the gov’t was all over it.
Yeah. And who can forget several President’s V.P. including Chester Arthur, Andrew Johnson and Millard Fillmore who was the super mysterious None. That’s not natural or born.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=276865
More from wnd for rhetorical analysis. 1095 as sample. Would have satisfied my course requirement for learning how to do a survey. But is the methodology sound beyond graduate work? Could be just dismissed as biased journalism. Btw No one has ever called me to ask me what I think, except for the Radio station I listen to and what country songs I liked (wrong demo graphic there I’ll tell ya. Just saw an award show promo fearturing lady ante bellum. How horrid) The few I trust enough to I ask don’t want to respond be cause they do not have enough $ u money to respond honestly.
For the unsavy, the sample group could prove itself wanting the sexy allure of .
Insider opposition. More angles for you within interest and expertise.
I’ve never heard of that polling outfit before. We’ll see if mainstream reports or Nate Silver discuss it.
Until then, nothing that comes from WND should be taken at face value. Heck, in reading that article, they didn’t seem very consistent with their percentages and their intepretation of them throughout the story. I haven’t bothered to look for the actual poll links and look at the underlying data, because I’m just not concerned enough with such polls to waste that time at the moment.
Am I surprised to hear that large amounts of GOP voting members answer the poll in a manner that makes Obama look suspect? No. That seems to be the nature of their base these days and I’m sure some believe it and others just want to tell pollsters that so the data can make Obama look bad. We’ve seen other recent polls show that this is a popular theme amongst the GOP base. No surprise here.
Independents are such an over-used generalization these days, it is hard to derive meaning from it. Most of the Tea Party folks I know call themselves “independent” and would tend to answer the question that way. Yet most of them have pretty much voted straight GOP their entire life…so I take how someone self-identifies on a poll with a large grain of salt. A small amount of people calling themselves “democrats” who vote that way is fairly consistent too. Of course, these are most likely the PUMA types that have claimed to be democrats but who are huge Sarah Palin fans and watch Fox News regularly…so my entire reaction to these types of polls is “meh”.
Just my two cents after reading what they wrote.
But thanks for proving that link about their latest story and the poll.
Here’s the analysis.
Joseph Farah is a fright wing cockroach who only hires other cockroaches to publish an unending stream of blatant lies and misinformation with the primary motivation to destroy the reputation and legitimacy of President Obama and a close secondary motivation to profit from gullible, uneducated, easily frightened people.
You’re welcome.
So only 9% believe Obama has proven where he was born? Yet when polls ask would you vote to re-elect the President somewhere between 45 and 50% say yes. So my conclusion is that at least 40% of the population considers where one is born irrelevant to whether one is a good President. To which i say, “Amen!”.
Because it bears repeating, early and often.
Absolutely. And I applaud your efforts on opednews.com as well as the watchdogging on conwebwatch.tripod.com.
Intrade has Obama at 62%. Intrade was wrong about Sharron Angle and Tancredo, and right about everything else.
I say he will be re-elected, and Booker will follow.
Now that is completely uncalled for, and unnecessarily cruel.
Cockroaches have feelings too, you know.
What about the feelings of barnyard animals? I am not accusing Joseph Farah of molesting sheep. I’m simply asking a question that no one else has done. Because of internet rumors, I am asking one question of Joseph Farah:
Prove to me you do not molest barnyard animals.
> So only 9% believe Obama has proven where he was born? Yet when polls ask would you vote to re-elect the President somewhere between 45 and 50% say yes.
That was one of the first thing I tried to tell the birfers at the Pest-and-eFail when I became aware of the whole issue – it doesn’t matter what 100% of the people believe as long as that belief does not have a measurable (let alone significant) influence on what they do.
An example: our Secretary of Defense recently stepped down because it was discovered he plagiarized most of his doctoral thesis. Still a significant part of the voters, according to polls, would love to see him back in an official position. So even though 100% (minus a few conspiracy wingnuts) believe he plagiarized his thesis *and lied about it* when first reports came out, most people do not seem to care.
So even if 100% of Americans doubted that Obama was born in the US, it doesn’t matter as long as that belief does not influence the outcome of the next election.
However the birthers seem totally unaware of the insignificance of themselves and their case.